25 interesting facts from the series “Today I learned” (26 photos)

The day was not in vain if you learned something new on this day, so it’s time to drop everything you’re doing and fall for an educational selection of posts from the “Today I learned” community, where millions of users regularly share interesting facts that they just learned about. read it yourself.





1. “Today I learned about a cat named Class 8 who lived in a public school for 16 years. He disappeared in the summer and returned in the fall on the first day of classes. He became so famous that poems and songs were written about him.”



2. “Today I learned that older pedestrians in Singapore are given more time to cross the road at traffic lights. If you touch your discount card to a scanner at a pedestrian crossing, the green man at the traffic light will light up 13 seconds longer.”





3. “Today I learned that Ubisoft has offered to share its detailed 3D model of Notre Dame from Assassin's Creed: Unity, based on 5,000 hours of research, with the French government to reconstruct the cathedral after a fire in 2019.”



4. “Today I learned that the Kootenai Indian Tribe of Idaho and Montana collects millions of dollars worth of sturgeon caviar a year, but throws it back into the rivers. They are desperately trying to save the dwindling population of white sturgeon, which they consider "sacred messengers."



5. “Today I learned about Foldit, a puzzle game about protein folding. In 2011, its players helped decipher the protein of an HIV-like virus, solving a scientific problem in just 10 days that had remained unsolved for 15 years.”



6. “Today I learned about road hypnosis, also known as “white line fever” - an altered state of consciousness in which a person can drive a car or truck over long distances, all the while reacting to external events in an expected, safe and correct way, and then don’t remember it at all.”



7. “Today I learned that sharks don’t make sounds. Among 400-500 species, not one of them has been found to have an organ capable of producing sound.”



8. “Shortly before Laika went into space, one of the scientists, knowing that she would not survive her journey, brought her home so that his children could play with her.”



9. “In 2001, Mattel released the Harry Potter vibrating broom, and soon Amazon was flooded with intriguing user reviews. Mattel discontinued the toy after adult stores in Times Square began selling it for double the original retail price."



10. “When Captain Francesco Schettino was asked why he abandoned the sinking cruise ship Costa Concordia in 2012 while the ship's passengers were either drowning or trying to escape, his excuse was that he had accidentally fallen into a lifeboat. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison."



11. “Today I learned about the existence of the Argonaut, a species of octopus in which the male fills his penis with sperm and then tears it off and hands it to the female.”



11. “Today I learned about the “epidemic of laughter in Tanganyika.” In 1962, at a school in Kashasha, Tanzania, a student began to laugh. The laughter instantly spread to hundreds of people, causing several schools to close for several months. Researchers believe this was caused by stress and social tension. No official explanation was given."



13. “Stroking a cat has been scientifically proven to lower blood pressure.”



14. “Today I learned that on November 16, 1949, students in Ghent, Belgium, stormed a medieval castle, lowered the portcullis and began throwing fruit at the police to protest a new tax on beer. The city still celebrates this event every year as the greatest student outburst in its history.”



15. “Today I learned that three years after winning gold at the 2004 Olympics, wrestler Rulon Gardner and two of his friends survived a plane crash in Lake Powell, Utah. The three men swam to shore in 7°C water for an hour and waited overnight for rescue without shelter. All three survived."



16. “When Johannes Rebmann, the first European to see Mount Kilimanjaro, wrote about his discovery in 1849, everyone considered it a hallucination caused by malaria, since it was believed that snow was impossible at this latitude. It took scientists another 12 years to recognize the existence of the mountain."



17. “Today I learned that not only are the mountains on Saturn’s moon Titan named after mountains and ranges from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, but the plains are also named after locations from the Dune universe.”



18. “Today I learned that MSG is not bad for us at all, and its bad reputation is associated with the so-called “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.”



19. “Today I learned that the Black Death contributed greatly to the development of British pubs and pub culture in general. Thanks to the plague, the labor shortage significantly increased the standard of living of the peasants, who, in turn, began to spend extra money on beer.”



20. “Today I learned about Nebraska’s “safe haven” law, which eliminated the age limit for relinquishing unwanted children. After this, parents began to abandon their children en masse, mainly “difficult” teenagers. The law has since been amended."



21. “When the Bible was first translated into Finnish, there was no Finnish word for lion, since no one had ever seen one. Instead, the translator used the word "jalopeura", which means "red deer."



22. “When Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed with the LA Galaxy, LeBron James sent him his Lakers jersey as a gift to say “Welcome to Los Angeles.” In response, Zlatan signed it and sent it back.”



23. “Today I learned about “androgen insensitivity syndrome,” which is when the body doesn’t respond to testosterone, so a person has the genetic makeup of a man but the physical traits of a woman.”



24. “In 1880, the average age of consent in the United States was set at around 10 or 12 in most states except Delaware. There the age of consent was 7 years old.”



25. “Today I learned that there are at least 5 species of sharks in the Thames Estuary (which runs through London), and that one of these species is poisonous.”